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MONDAY, Sept.
24, 2012 (MedPage Today) — The CDC is trying to find
out how well a $54 million campaign of emotional ads to scare smokers into
quitting worked, researchers said.

During the 3 months that the ads aired on TV, radio, and social media,
calls to a national quit line more than doubled and hits on the smoking
cessation website smokefree.gov tripled, according to
Nancy Rigotti, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Melanie Wakefield,
PhD, of the Cancer Council Victoria in Australia.

Whether the boosted short-term response will translate to a lower
smoking prevalence remains to be seen, and the CDC is watching closely. It has sponsored
an ongoing longitudinal study of 5,000 adult smokers and 2,000 adult nonsmokers
who completed online surveys a month before the campaign launched and
immediately after it ended.

The stars of the ads were former smokers who were now living with the
consequences of smoking — particularly the stoma, which turns voices
robotic.

"Emotive personal testimonials and narratives are powerful
strategies for reaching and influencing the broad population of smokers,"
the researchers wrote. "Emotionally laden stories show the risks of
tobacco use in a far more potent way than abstract information
can."

The idea was to "increase smokers' sense of personal vulnerability
to serious disease and increase their sense of urgency for quitting," they
wrote.

In the survey, respondents were asked questions about their awareness
of the campaign, as well as their attitudes toward smoking cessation and
secondhand smoke exposure.

Nonsmokers also were asked if they had encouraged friends or family
members to quit. Survey results are expected by the end of the year, the
researchers wrote.

The public health literature is on the CDC's side, Rigotti and
Wakefield wrote, with strong evidence that mass-media education campaigns can
have an impact on behavior, particularly when it comes to smoking.

They warned that the campaign's brief 3-month run will probably limit
its effects. CDC said it will run another 3-month campaign in the first quarter
of 2013.

Funding for the ad series, titled "Tips From Former
Smokers," came from the Affordable Care Act's prevention and public health
fund. The $54 million pricetag was an "unprecedented" amount spent on
tobacco control in the U.S., the researchers said — though they
warned that it "pales in comparison to the $27 million spent daily by the
tobacco industry to market its products."

FDA also has gone graphic with its anti-smoking initiatives, including
a plan to make warning labels on cigarette packs much more intimidating. The
new graphic labels were supposed to appear this month, but implementation was
halted due to ongoing
litigation with the tobacco industry.

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